The Un-Diplomatic Podcast

The good, bad, and ugly of Biden picking Susan Rice for Vice President.  Why progressives need sanctions too, and how a new think tank report sheds light on how it might work.  The Pentagon has militarized the Coronavirus response and yet can't win a war.  And America's closest allies are hedging in reasonable--and dangerous way.  South Korea is the latest. Jeet Heer tweet: https://twitter.com/Hee...

The US is going to withdraw troops from South Korea--you heard it here first.  The Democratic Party platform throws a bone to progressives, mostly.  Pompeo rejects Nixon, and shows himself to be worse than him too.  Gestapo come to Portland, and why the mayor needs strategy advice.  Also the this episode: The myth of China strategy, Quislings, and decoupling for real. Matt Duss Tweet: https://twit...

A foreign policy reckoning is coming for the establishment Democrats in Congress.   Kanye West can't be president, but he can mess it up for Biden.  If China invades Taiwan, the real press it will pay comes during occupation.  Why broad anti-fascist coalitions are good.   Contributors: Pete McKenzie, Ciara Mitchell, Jake Dellow, Gaby Magnuson David Klion Tweet: https://twitter.com/DavidKlion/statu...

As I officially launch a new book project, I'm also launching a new occasional series within The Un-Diplomatic Podcast called Writer's Room.  It's going to track my journey of writing my third book with occasional mini-episodes.  I'll also use the Writer's Room episodes to intermittently check in with other writers working on books to learn about their experiences.  

The Democratic Party's foreign policy is controlled by unipolar-moment hawks.  Australian strategists are making plans for conflict with China without the US.  New Zealand has a China policy that looks awfully janus-faced, but there's method (and risk) to the madness.  And if Democrats' plan to fight Trump is to "win big in November" and nothing else, then the game is already lost.   Contributors:...

There's NOTHING progressive about working with the MAGA right.  Why the arguments for US military superiority keep changing but the demand stays the same.  Also this episode: Does Taiwan need nukes?  Why did Kim Jong Un publicly restrain his military from attacking the South?  And what's wrong with imagining Korea as a maritime defense perimeter? Yakov Feygin Tweet: https://twitter.com/BuddyYakov/...

Deterrence is not failing in Asia, America is.  A little advice about how NOT to network in Washington.  What's more dangerous, the Sino-Indian conflict or North Korea?  Also this episode: how international relations theory can be used in practice, and why China hawks are actually Trump's useful idiots. Susan Hennessy Tweet: https://twitter.com/Susan_Hennessey/status/1273392725937790979?s=20 Rache...

In this episode, Van sits down with Matt Duss, senior foreign policy adviser to former presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders.  Matt shares his backstory, including his pathway into foreign policy, his relationship to the Washington establishment, and how he ended up working working for Senator Sanders.  He dishes about how the Sanders presidential campaign organized its foreign policy tea...

Can liberals and Marxists find common cause?  The left often weighs in on China, but is silent on the biggest strategic question of our time: Should the United States seek to decouple its economy from China?  Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong forecasts a more zero-sum world, but is anyone listening?  Australia has put itself in a bad place strategically, and it's a warning to small states...

Joe Biden needs progressive technocracy to fight the transnational corruption and oligarchy that threatens democracies everywhere.  The demands of the Black Lives Matter campaign are the best foreign policy.   Antifa is not a terrorist group.  Terrorizing Antifa is, you know, fascism.  The danger of 'little green men' in Washington.  Also this episode: Why Tom Cotton is no friend of Hong Kong, or...

How much does it cost to buy a Washington Post columnist?  One fancy dinner at the State Department. The think tank behind Trump's anti-China campaign.  North Korea getting dangerous and nobody paying attention.  Why the Marine Corps' new war fighting concept threatens the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex.  What the India-China border dispute tells us about Chinese intentions.   Matt Duss...

HR McMaster proves that in Washington, hawks only fail up.  Are Republicans against international order?  Chinese Netizens wants Trump to win the election because they think he's a racist joke who helps rally nationalism in China.  What conspiracy theory is leading to cell phone towers being set ablaze in New Zealand?  Only one country thinks arms-racing is the path to security--America, baby.   C...

Biden's best chance of winning might be embracing the anti-war movement.  Democracies for Taiwan.  Is there anything Australia can do to save the United States?  Is the US Space Force a militarist boondoggle?  Also this episode: The legacy of Henry Kissinger.  Turkish imperialism.  Pompeo gaslighting on Iran.  And advice about studying international relations.   Demand Progress: https://demandprog...

American foreign policy is a reality TV show.  Through the China looking glass with HR McMaster.  Also this episode:Why is Korean peace a dirty phrase in Washington?   Did a member of Congress just tell a journalist that defense hawks will have to lies in the form of strategic rhetoric to keep the defense budget obscenely high?  Yes, he did.  Does speaking Chinese make for good anti-China propagan...

The "Blob" national security establishment is necessary, often wrong, and loses any argument where it concedes that it's a Blob.  Are nuclear weapons inherently undemocratic and tyrannical?  George Orwell predicted yes.  Are political scientists wrong about diversionary war?  The National Republican Senatorial Committee thinks so in their latest memo that directs candidates to not defend Trump and...

Grand strategy is more necessary--and harder to do--than ever.  Alliance management with Japan and South Korea is becoming impossible when one is a hawk and the other a dove.  What the hell is happening with Kim Jong Un?  China's horrible...and so is anti-Chinese racism.  Van's endless white-collar frustrations with working from home in the Coronavirus era.  Also this episode: What does Van like t...

Why Senator Chris Murphy might end up being the Henry Kissinger of the Left.  Are Millennials more hawkish on China than Boomers and Gen X?  Chicago Council on Global Affairs has polling data that tells us.  Robert Zoellick's new book highlights a neoliberal split on the China question.  Why socialists need to support Biden.  South Korean elections bring a North Korean defector to the National Ass...

Does the novel Coronavirus pandemic count as a Black Swan? Van Jackson goes deep on why it was and why it matters. Is strategic competition within interdependence possible? The neoliberal irony of strategizing to fight China using resources gotten from trading with China. Why the metaphor of Pearl Harbor is not just in appropriate securitization of the pandemic--it's ultimately an un-democratic po...

Singapore's not happy with any of the great powers, but do they have a Plan B for a failure of US leadership?  Should NATO expel Hungary for turning into a dictatorship?  What happened in the latest Korea-watcher spat between Jeffrey Lewis and Joel Wit?  Also this episode: The paradigm wars in international relations theory didn't end; they migrated into Asian security studies.  The Coronavirus sh...

Is US China policy racist?  A better question is whether Pompeo is the Sebastian Gorka of China policy. How to make sense of dueling Chinese diplomats.  Will the European Union expand, even as it's contracting?  Is the US prepping an invasion of Venezuela?  And the avoidable nightmare of a suspended presidential election.  Also this episode: North Korea as a bizarrely stable nuclear flashpoint, an...

Why does the Pentagon keep getting deterrence wrong?  Why is Mike Pompeo threatening the families of staff who work for the International Criminal Court?  And what makes Russia so different from China?  Also this episode: the danger of US-China conspiracy theories; why China's bid for hegemony involves a lot of cheap talk; white supremacy in the military; and the inhumanity and anti-strategy of sa...

Why liberal foreign policy is a bad fit for dark times.  What Netflix's Narcos can tell us about order and stability in international relations. Why Russia started an oil price war with Saudi Arabia.  Why the critical left doesn't understand power as well as it thinks.  If your think tank gets money from Ali Baba, that doesn't automatically make you a Chinese agent.  What does Bernie Sanders reall...

The dangers of low-yield nukes in Taiwan.  Why great power competition requires democracy and equality at home.  Thinking through the risks and benefits  of arms control summitry with China, and why Trump can't make it work.  Why the comparisons between Vietnam and Afghanistan militate against keeping troops around.  Also this episode: Is Biden killing the youth vote, or saving American democracy?...

Why pundits don't understand the political savvy of Bernie Sanders.  Does losing Taiwan mean losing Japan?  Yes and no.  Why the pundits don't understand the political savvy of Bernie Sanders.  Why the State Department is sabotaging arms control while promoting a fake arms control agenda.  And how China's historical record speaks to a strategic culture that Pompeo just doesn't understand.  Also th...

The restraint movement in foreign policy starts penetrating Washington.  Elizabeth Warren takes on the biggest oligarch of them all--Mike Bloomberg.  China trade distorts the national interest.  And Van Jackson thinks through the merits of NATO versus a European Defense Union.  Also this episode: Why Trump will keep extorting South Korea; the danger of Russia and Turkey treating Syria as a sphere...